Organic solvents are commonly used for dissolving organic compounds being water insoluble or having low water solubility. Many agriculturally active ingredients, such as pesticide and plant growth regulators, are organic compounds that commonly are water insoluble, or have low water solubility. Hence, solvents have typically been used in the preparation of agricultural formulations, in order to prepare aqueous agricultural formulations with a concentration of agricultural actives exceeding the solubility thereof in water.
Agricultural formulations are conventionally provided in the form of concentrated compositions, which are diluted with water by the end-user to obtain the work-composition that is eventually used, e.g. sprayed on a crop field. In the case of e.g. water-insoluble agricultural actives, the concentrated composition may be a so-called emulsifiable concentrate which, when mixed with water, results in an emulsion of the agricultural active in water. However, upon dilution of the concentrate with an aqueous medium, the agricultural actives in the emulsion are prone to crystallisation. This is highly undesired, e.g. as such crystals may clog spraying nozzles and/or may result in an uneven distribution of the agricultural active on a field. To meet this problem, recent development has resulted in the use of long-chain dialkyl amides as solvents for agricultural actives.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,225 relates to inhibition of crystallisation of specific pesticidally active triazole compounds in sprayable compositions by the addition thereto of alkyl carboxylic acid dimethyl amides based on C6-C20 alkyl carboxylic acids. WO 2008/145063 discloses an agrochemical composition that comprises an azole active ingredient and an N,N-dialkyl long chain alkyl amide present in sufficient amount to prevent or inhibit the crystallization of the azole derivative during the application of the composition to a locus. WO 95/15685 relates to the use of carboxylic acid amides as crystallization inhibitors in the application of aqueous sprays that contain certain azole derivatives liable to crystallization.
However, and especially at low temperatures, the crystallisation problem remains to a certain degree with the use of the solvents presented in the above mentioned prior art. Hence, improved organic solvents would be desirable.